


The Picture of Dorian Pavus

by TheLynx



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dragon Age Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 17:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3863713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLynx/pseuds/TheLynx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But it was all a lie, wasn’t it? There was no such thing as love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Picture of Dorian Pavus

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Meme fill. Prompt can be found [here](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14317.html?thread=54558445#t54558445).

Love was a curious thing.

It was nothing but a far-fetched dream. Something to write silly little plays and novels about. A man and a woman would fall in love, elevating their domestic lives to something beautiful and ideal as they got married, settled down, and had kids. They would love their children. Their family would be joyful and the envy of all their peers. It was perfect.

But it was all a lie, wasn’t it? There was no such thing as love.

Happy marriages with happy children doing happy activities like singing and dancing. Nothing but a lie that some people tried to emulate. Sure, his parents had put on the perfect show—but all it had done was hide the poison that pumped through all their veins. They snidely snipped at one another, barely able to tolerate the other’s presence for long enough to conceive a child. They dressed him up properly and set him on a path to success, nevermind that he might have different wants.

He had thought, once, that he might be able to find love. A naïve desire he had had as a child, growing up reading fairytales and love stories when he wasn’t studying magical theory. It took little enough time for him to realize that it was impossible, yet he had stubbornly clung to the idea. His parents didn’t love each other. They didn’t love him, either; they only wanted him for their own dreams. And of course, when he hit his teen years, he was a little less interested in a love story with a woman—but those stories never existed for two men.

That was about the same time the dragons returned to the world. It was strange, wasn’t it? The way that impossible things happen while the things that once seemed natural become entirely unattainable.

He let his hand run down the side of the portrait’s chipped frame, idly tracing the cracks in the golden paint. Impossible things were happening quite a lot lately, weren’t they?

He had barely been an adult by the time he decided to start drinking and sleeping around. His studies meant less and less to him over time; his life was missing _something_ , and it certainly hadn’t been magic. Perhaps he was looking for love. Love, that deceitful little temptation that only pretended to exist.

Maybe he shouldn’t have slept with that demon. It had given him what he desired at that time, let him keep one of the few things that he enjoyed about himself…

Maybe then he wouldn’t hurt. He could’ve let himself die instead.

Alexius, his former classmate, had never asked him questions about it. All the other man had known was that Dorian had stopped aging. He knew Alexius wondered, but how could he admit to what he’d done?

Every lie he told, every time he drank too much or slept with one more man in search of what was missing—it all made his portrait look a little bit more sickly. It scowled. Its arms and mouth dripped blood and wine, and as it aged in his place, it became more and more haunted. He had taken to covering it with a sheet to hide his shame.

Yet he had, in the end, admitted some of it to his friend, who had gone to him when Felix had caught the Blight. “Dorian, please, you must know of some way to help save him. I don’t know what you did, and I don’t care. Just save my son.”

Was that love? It was the first Dorian had ever seen of something so desperate. At first he had thought it something his parents would do—investing in a son to continue the bloodline. But that was not the sort of person Alexius was.

“He would never agree to it.” It was true; Felix always had been a better man than Dorian. Making deals with demons wasn’t the sort of thing he was wont to do.

Alexius nearly tore apart the world in Corypheus’ name, regardless, to try saving his son. The jealousy Dorian had felt afterwards contorted the mouth on his portrait’s face. It terrified him. What about that devotion bothered him so much?

And then there was the Herald.

Handsome, proud, and strong, wielding magic so beautifully and powerfully that Dorian had lost his breath the first time he watched him fight. He was everything he desired, a perfect man with an exceptional body and charming wit, leading Dorian into debates and theoretical discussions that could last for days. It was easy to let himself relax around the man.

Things had become confusing.

Dorian removed the sheet from the portrait, letting his eyes roam over the image. It was still horrific, bearing heavy wounds and dripping blood as it tended to, yet some of the wounds had closed to become scars and the expression had taken to almost smiling.

The change had started about the time the Inquisition left Haven. He had been truly worried for the Herald, something he hadn’t felt for quite a long time. The man cared for Dorian, asked about his day and his thoughts, and he even flirted a bit. After the move, the flirting led to kissing and sex.

But he wanted a relationship.

Everything in Dorian’s mind had screamed out “No!” in response. Love was imaginary; pretending to love was dangerous and could poison one’s soul. To want a relationship, a mimicry of the tall tales told in storybooks…

He had said “Yes.” If he could make this one man happy, he would do it. His soul was already torn apart and broken, aching for something whose existence he denied. There was not much more damage to be done.

The Inquisitor had confessed his love to Dorian, but Dorian didn’t even know what love was. Was it those soft mornings when they woke up entwined in each other’s arms, kissing each other gently in the sweet sunlight? Was it fighting together against evil entities, determined against all odds to survive and succeed? Was it the tears Dorian had shed and the way his heart had stopped, watching his lover collapse in pain after drinking from the Well?

Love wasn’t supposed to hurt, was it? Yet the more he gave himself to the Inquisitor, the more his portrait healed. No longer was he immersing himself in hedonistic pleasures for the sake of losing himself, valuing little past the temporary beauty of the world. He performed selflessly, inspired by the other man to help others and make the world a better place, willing to bend over backwards to spare his lover any ounce of pain.

He was called back to the present by comforting arms reaching around him, the Inquisitor pulling Dorian away from the painting and into a gentle, grounding hug. He heard a soft sound—a sob, he realized, blinking to fight back tears. His own voice.

The other man didn’t say a word. He just held Dorian, there in their shared quarters, in front of the painting that had ruined and saved Dorian’s life.

Whatever love happened to be, he wasn’t sure he cared anymore. That this man accepted him so fully that he didn’t judge or reject him for this, that he gave as fiercely for Dorian as Dorian gave for him—that was what mattered now.

Maybe love wasn’t a lie after all.


End file.
